EU/EEA hosting would open up the Norwegian public sector for Webflow

I run Mediaveien, a full-service agency in Northern Norway, and Webflow is our main platform for client websites. This feature is the single biggest thing holding us back.

A large share of web projects in Norway are commissioned by the public sector. Municipalities, county councils, municipal enterprises, inter-municipal companies, harbours and publicly owned energy companies all buy websites through public tenders, and these tenders increasingly require that data is stored within the EU/EEA. When that requirement is there, Webflow is disqualified before we can even submit an offer, no matter how good the solution is. We have had to look at other stacks just to be able to compete for these contracts.

This is not a niche problem. Norway has more than 350 municipalities, and every one of them, together with their companies and institutions, needs a website that is easy to maintain, accessible and secure. That is exactly what Webflow does well. The same goes for the other Nordic countries, where public sector procurement works in much the same way.

The current setup relying on the EU–US Data Privacy Framework is not enough for these clients. Public buyers remember what happened to Privacy Shield in 2020, and with the European Data Protection Board now asking the Commission to reassess the DPF, they see it as a risk they do not want to take. Other US platforms such as Shopify already store European merchant data in Europe by default, so public buyers know it can be done.

An EU/EEA hosting option, even if limited to Enterprise or a separate add-on, would let agencies like ours bring Webflow into a market that is closed to it today. Every public sector site also becomes a reference that private companies in the same region notice. For Webflow, this could mean a significantly larger footprint in Norway and the Nordics.

This idea has been marked as Planned since 2017. We would really appreciate an update on whether it is still on the roadmap and roughly when we can expect it.

Magnus Kristiansen Jonas
Mediaveien AS, Alta, Norway

it´s necessary!!!! I live in Germany my Site is hosted in an unsecured third country!! I definitely can´t sell that to my customers.

Need EU hosting

Needed!

Go! Go! Go! 🇨🇦

Very needed

Needed ASAP

I'm really commited to make sustainable web design as the main topic when creating websites so this is more than necessary to have this ability!

We definitely need this for regulatory reasons.

With the introduction of Memberships and Logic, we are now considering using Webflow to expand software business to deliver user enhanced websites. However as we work exlcusively in the UK market and with Health clients, we NEED this implemented as its a base requirment of many who work within/with the NHS.

vote also here, on order to push this topic:
https://wishlist.webflow.com/ideas/WEBFLOW-I-3429#votes

Yes, very important! I have several clients in Europe and especially with the privacy shield solution, we need a better way to confirm with GDPR. Webflow needs to offer hosting in different countries and regions!!

Very important! Many Canadian clients insist on Canadian hosting due to privacy laws.

This is important for us in Canada as well.

Definitely required - I am losing clients who need to host within the UK for GDPR reasons.

Important!

The same here: two major clients will not let me use Webflow for any web projects here in Germany. When they hear 'hosted in the USA', they get paranoid instantly. Please offer me a waterproof solution to calm those down.

Important

Ability to host the CMS on any server would be even better, then I could finally stop creating Wordpress sites. I do the design in Webflow and then I convert it to Wordpress, because Wordpress has one single important feature that webflow dont: My clients can use their own local host, and thats always a must for my clients here in 2019/2020

This is good step taken by authorities to filter the websites. It is complex to read and monitor big amount of data but by taking this measure we will be able to control majority of them. If you are facing windows dll issue then kick it away by simply reading the tips.